Being Greece. A European Tragedy – Part III

Greece might choose to leave the Euro and return to its own currency in order to reopen the banks. Most likely the EU would attack the new currency and drive its value in exchange markets to such a low rate that Greece could not import, and wealth held in Greek currency would be worthless abroad.

Allegedly for about one year or two, it would be really tough. Then, despite the very low GDP, Greece would become a net exporter and everything would start over (exports, employment, domestic consumption.)

Greece-EU deadlock might also create the conditions for Russia and China to finance Greece and bring it into the economic relationships established by the BRICS.

Russia has already taken steps to integrate Greece into the $100 billion New Development Bank, and since April, Tsipras has made two visits to Moscow, which have led to a lifting of import ban on some Greek products, and Russia’s stance to be ready to include Greece in the Turkey Stream pipeline project, worth 2 billion Euro ($2.2 billion). And the day after the referendum, a phone conversation took place between Putin and Tsipras in order to discuss the result and issues of further development of Russian-Greek cooperation.

Unfortunately, both of the options are far from being taken into account.

First and foremost, staying in the Eurozone was among Syriza’s slogans before the elections earlier in 2014.

Facing the creditors’ inflexibility, the government called the referendum as a ploy, hoping to use it as a mean to conclude an agreement with the EC, ECB and IMF, whatever the result. Its ultimate objective was to get them to agree a bailout package providing partial relief from repayments, along with a substantial debt write-down.

Once the NO victory was confirmed, Tsipras stated the mandate citizens gave him didn’t call for a break with the EU, but rather gave him greater negotiating power. In fact, he immediately made overtures to the same EU leaders who had repeatedly refused any concession to Greece over the past five months.

As further confirmation of this stance, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis resigned few hours after vote result surfaced. He stated he was told that some members of Eurozone considered him unwelcome at meetings of finance ministers.

New minister was appointed E. Tsakalotos, a leading member of Greece’s bailout negotiation, whose paramount objective is to restart dialog between Greece and its creditors.

The masochistic stubbornness the Syriza government shows in keeping shackled to the Euro at any cost, can be understood by switching from regarding Greece as a country to regard Greece as a condition. Being Greece is simply the terminal stage on a road undertaken by each of the Eurozone member states.

The implementation of the Euro leads to end the welfare state. It’s the primary cause of the exponentially growing debt that makes the loans necessary. The loans are granted along with agreements for forced privatizations. So, the public asset is yielded up to the private sector. Prices rise, state revenues fall sheer. Cutbacks in wages and pensions follow. It’s a loop. Eventually, bankruptcy is here.

Tsipras doesn’t have the means to bring the country out of this vicious circle, neither would any other leader, no matter how high a score of votes he gets, or how loud an enthusiastic crowd shouts on Syntagma Square. Greece is only the first one to cross the finish line, others will follow.

The Greece issue was among the topics of the ridiculous G7 summit in Bavaria last June. Though it was not necessary, the meeting proved one more time the EU leaders are nothing but vassals of a master overseas, and their sole task is do their bidding. The EU could do much to help Greece, and in a short time as well. It did hardly anything, but threaten financial havoc and social collapse, because Greece’s default consequences don’t bother at all. The EU is no family of equals, whose members help one another through difficult times. Rather than use taxpayers’ money to help Greece, the EU used it to destabilize Ukraine, a non member state. This heinous and madcap act didn’t favor anyone but NATO expansionist policies.

Therefore, Greece won’t exit from the Eurozone, let alone the EU. US hegemony is there to keep it well shackled – no free choice allowed. Washington’s interest is Greece to remain under full European control, as an essential country for strategic and geopolitical balance. Its plans don’t envisage power vacuums or non under control territories in the Mediterranean to benefit competitors – especially Russia, which would get to dock warships in Greek ports, very close to the Black Sea, Europe and Turkey. And the Kremlin is eager to count on a EU member to exert its influence from within. Even China, currently engaged in intensive consultations to solve the crisis, repeatedly stated that the EU must safeguard its unity and Greece should stay in the Eurozone.

Those who believe the Greek referendum to set the spark for a liberalization process from the EU dictatorship, they’ll be utterly disappointed. If the Greek people rescued themselves from the clutches of the EU simply by voting, the same attempt could be made in Italy, Spain, Portugal – all of them targeted for looting. A domino effect with dramatic consequences might start.

The growth of BRICS economic cooperation might attract other EU states such as Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Balkans, breaking western unity while strengthening non-European partnership across Asia. The erosion of western economic alliance could mean the start of a process of unraveling NATO. Inevitably, this would imply war.

Thus, what will remain of the Greek NO to the Troika?

The Eurozone will keep playing hardball. Even though the IMF itself admits some debt relief is inevitable. Even though Merkel herself, in a NSA spying released by Wikileaks, admitted back in 2011 that Greece’s debt was unsustainable.

If the Troika gives in to Tsipras’s demands and renegotiates the debt implementing policies stimulating economic growth, the ruthless austerity program it carried out so far would eventually appear for what it truly is: useless, spurious, prevaricating, suicidal.

By keeping downright inflexible, the outcome would be Greece’s bankruptcy in a matter of months and the subsequent social collapse. European financial elite would present it as the inevitable outcome of Greek’s initiative and use it to deter other nations from following their example. The punchline would be: no salvation outside the EU.

Instead, a game of agreements, relief and concessions back and forth, all of them foisted off on the public as significant or irrelevant as the case, will begin, and allegedly a slice of the debt will be shared among EU members somehow. Much truth will be kept silent, much sham strewn out and about. It will be a national-popular epic, filled up with heroics, endurance and glory days.

Greece people have borne the brunt of some of the most brutal austerity measures ever carried out against a European population in peacetime. Tried and humiliated, they had the guts to openly challenge the Troika, and they did it by claiming sovereignty in their own country through voting – through democracy. A thing the EU elite abhors.

That’s what will remain: a moral victory, and an example not to be followed. It takes far more to kill the monster.